One of the great challenges of the 21st Century is increasing life expectancy, while at the same time maintaining quality of life in an ageing population. Regenerative medicine is, therefore, a new strategy that seeks to repair damaged or diseased tissues to their original state or function by helping natural healing processes to work faster, or by using special materials with human cell cultures, the so-called “scaffolds,” which act as three-dimensional templates for cell growth and differentiation and formation of living tissues.
Synthetic scaffolds have been proposed as a new means of tissue reconstruction and repair. Scaffolds belong to a new generation of biomedical structures, which rely on the concept of regeneration of diseased or damaged tissue to its original state or function, instead of the current clinical procedures, which are based on replacement by implantation or transplantation. The latter two possess well-known drawbacks such as limited lifespan, lack of ability to self-repair, limited vascularisation of implants, limited number of donors, and possibility of rejection of transplants.
The scaffold serves as both physical support and adhesive substrate for isolated cells during in vitro culturing and subsequent in vivo implantation. Scaffolds may be used to deliver cells to desired sites in the body, to define a potential space for engineered tissue, or to guide the process of tissue development. Cell transplantation on scaffolds has been explored for the regeneration of skin, nerve, liver, and pancreas using various biological and synthetic materials. In particular, scaffolds containing dual porosity at the nano- and macroscale have been alleged to exhibit better performance in terms of crystallization of hydroxycarbonate apatite, cell adhesion and proliferation, and vascularization. Such materials, however, typically either lack sufficient mechanical strength to be of practical use or they lack an interconnected pore morphology that is compatible with vascularization.
Intended advantages of the biocompatible inorganic porous materials and methods disclosed herein satisfy one or more needs or provide other advantageous features. Other features and advantages will be made apparent from the present specification, the teachings of which extend to those embodiments that fall within the scope of the claims, regardless of whether they accomplish one or more of the aforementioned needs.